~~~

As soon as Liu Jin enters Rainstorm City, it becomes obvious Leader Liu and the men of the Brotherhood have been hard at work. The area devastated by Liu Jin’s battle with Han has already been cleared. All the material from the ruined houses and damaged city walls has been repurposed to create big, sturdy shelters. Liu Jin doesn’t imagine they offer much in the way of privacy, but it is much better than living in the streets.

The City Lord’s lazy soldiers are nowhere to be seen. Rainstorm City is now diligently patrolled by the men of the Brotherhood. If any soldiers were allowed to switch sides, they have clearly shaped up.

Most of the casinos have been shut down, and the smell of alcohol is nowhere near as prominent as before. However, that doesn’t mean Rainstorm City is fixed. Not at all. The people are still poor, the outskirts are still horrible, and without a primary source of revenue, the city will end up wasting away.

All the same…

“You have done an admirable job, Leader Liu,” Liu Jin says when he greets the man.

Leader Liu snorts.

“Spare me the flattery.”

“It is not flattery,” Liu Jin says, frowning. “ I am sincerely grateful to you and the Brotherhood of Thunder. I don’t think anyone else could have done this much in such a short amount of time.”

“How grateful I am that royalty has such a high opinion of me.”

It takes Liu Jin five seconds to find his voice again.

“Ah.” Liu Jin grimaces. “You know about that.”

“Know about it?” Leader Liu asks him. He spits to the side. “Half the damn city is talking about it! They’re whispering your name! The people are saying you’re going to free them from Murong Bang!”

Liu Jin winces. While manifesting purple lightning was bound to make people talk, for his name to be on everyone’s lips already, and for the rumors to have taken that direction…

He definitely senses Lu Mei’s influence there.

“Now, you show up here with a bunch of kids from the Lei Clan! How am I supposed to interpret that?”

“They’re necessary to make the Lei Clan listen to me,” Liu Jin explains. “The leader of the Lei Clan and their elders are dead, and my servant is now in charge. That should make things simpler–”

“Simpler?!” Leader Liu shouts. He throws his hands up. “Simpler, he says. What sort of game are you playing?”

“There are no games. You have my word on that,” Liu Jin says.

Leader Liu crosses his arms. “Is that worth much?”

Liu Jin goes still. Indignation flares in his eyes.

“Have I not kept your secrets? Did I not help depose the City Lord? Have I not done my best for your father?” Liu Jin asks. He never raises his voice, yet his anger is nearly palpable. “Now, I return with the Lei Clan defeated, and if all goes well, their slave trade will be no more. Your people will be safe from their abuses! Is that not worth anything to you?”

Leader Liu frowns.

“Fair enough,” he says, albeit reluctantly. “However, I am still angry at you for forcing this position on me.”

“I understand, but it would be shameless of me to apologize.”

Leader Liu scoffs. “I was under the impression shamelessness came naturally to you. Why shy away from it now?

“Have you thought about moving your refugees here?” Liu Jin asks, ignoring Leader Liu’s taunt.

“The opposite,” Leader Liu says. “Our hidden city is in a far better state than this place. I was discussing with my men about moving all the people there. Or maybe even build a new city entirely in a place with more fertile land.”

“Perhaps that would be for the best,” Liu Jin admits. “Maybe Rainstorm City has already lived too long. However, before doing that, you might wish to send some men to Port Blue. Big Sister Bai has departed for it. I suspect she’s going to destroy the place very thoroughly.”

She had announced her intention to go to the port from which the Lei Clan shipped out their slaves once they were a few miles away from Rainstorm City, and Liu Jin had enough sense to recognize it would be foolish to try to stop her. He should count himself lucky that Big Sister Bai managed to hold herself back this much.

“What?” Leader Liu asks. “Who the hell is…?”

He never gets to finish. A member of the Brotherhood comes running in.

“Leader Liu!” the man yells. “It’s Elder Liu! He is coming here!”

“What sort of nonsense are you saying?!” Leader Liu asks him. “My father is in no condition to–!”

“It’s true!” The soldier says desperately. “One of the scouts spotted his transport. He’s been sighted just a few mi-”

Leader Liu is gone before the man finishes talking. He takes off running so quickly that the air cracks in his wake.

“Don’t worry,” Liu Jin tells the man of the Brotherhood. Like Leader Liu, Liu Jin has already detected Elder Liu’s Qi about two miles away from Rainstorm City. “I will go with him to make sure Elder Liu makes it here safely.”

Once again, the soldier is not given any time to speak.

~~~

Nearly two hours later, Elder Liu has been safely moved to Rainstorm City and now rests in one of the rooms of the former City Lord’s mansion.

“You gave your son quite a scare,” Liu Jin says, sitting by Elder Liu’s bedside.

Being a cultivator in the True Realm, Leader Liu had no problems reaching his father. However, it was no happy reunion between the two. The argument that followed was so loud Liu Jin wouldn’t be surprised if every person in Rainstorm City managed to hear it.

Well, Liu Jin calls it an argument, but that implies a discussion between two people. In reality, it was just Leader Liu yelling really loudly.

The following ride to Rainstorm City was very, very awkward.

“Oh, that son of mine could never control his temper,” Elder Liu says. Unlike his son, who left a while ago to calm himself down, the man is the picture of peace.

“Elder Liu,” Liu Jin says, frowning at the older man. “I won’t disagree that your son has a bad temper, but he was not wrong to worry about you. It was very dangerous for you to come here in your condition. To be honest… it would not have been surprising if you…”

Liu Jin trails off. He cannot finish.

“I know,” Elder Liu says with calm certainty.

“Then why would you come here?!” Liu Jin asks, looking at him in shock. “Why risk yourself like this, Elder Liu? Do you think your son would like to see you die so foolishly? And not just him but all those in the Brotherhood who care for you!”

Eder Liu smiles sadly.

“What would the alternative be? Die in my bed while my son is away in business that cannot be ignored? Perhaps I would have died in my sleep, and people would have called it peaceful.” Elder Liu shakes his head. “No, that will not do. I needed to see this.”

Elder Liu tries to rise from his bed, but his old body lacks the strength. He is too tired from the journey.

“Elder Liu, please,” Liu Jin begs, putting a hand over his grandfather’s shoulder. “You cannot push yourself like this.”

“Help me up,” Elder Liu says. “Take me to the window. Please.”

How can he deny him if he asks him that? Liu Jin puts his arm around Elder Liu’s waist and helps him stand up, treating him like the frailest porcelain.

“It looks so different now,” Elder Liu says once they reach the window. He puts his hands on the windowsill to steady himself.

“I apologize,” Liu Jin says. “A lot of the damage was caused by me.”

Elder Liu laughs weakly. “Oh, I did not mean it like that. I was comparing the city to how it looked when I was a child.”

“You have been here before?”

“My father brought my mother and I for a festival once,” Elder Liu says. “Back then, the Lei Clan were still known as stalwart defenders of the Empire, though maybe they were rotten even back then.”

A melancholic sigh escapes his mouth.

“I am more than eighty years old,” Elder Liu says. “It’s nothing by the standards of cultivators, I know. You and my son will both live to be several times my age. It would not surprise me if you already know people who make me look like a babe by comparison. However, those eighty years have allowed me to see many things. I saw this city teeming with lights and happy people. I remember our towns and villages being prosperous.”

Something heavy falls over his face, and it is as if he had aged ten years before Liu Jin’s eyes.

“I remember the Emperor being assassinated. I remember the rise in hostilities that led to the civil war and the Black Dragon’s rise. I remember his disappearance and the beginning of another civil war,” he says. “I never saw a battlefield. I was never a soldier. I just saw how the battles that happened far away from our little villages somehow wore everything down. Food had to be given to the army, so we had less to eat. Men had to go fight, so we had fewer people to defend ourselves against bandits. Then Murong Bang took power, and it all became worse.”

“I am sorry.”

Elder Liu chuckles.

“Oh, what do you have to apologize for?”

“It is an expression of sympathy,” Liu Jin says. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that. None of you should have.”

“Nevertheless, I did. We did,” Elder Liu says. “Don’t tell him this, but though I was proud of my son for fighting against the abuses of the Lei Clan, I thought that was all we could do. Merely slow down the process and save a few people. Never once did I imagine I’d see the Lei Clan brought to heel and our people free.”

“Murong Bang still rules,” Liu Jin reminds him.

“Aye, that he does,” Elder Liu says, nodding. “But the City Lord is dead, and the Lei Clan has fallen. It is a change I never thought I’d see. It is a change that gives me hope for the future of this country. That is all thanks to you.”

Liu Jin looks away. The smile on Elder Liu’s face is too bright for his eyes.

“I… I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Elder Liu.”

Elder Liu laughs. “Always so proper. You really do remind me of Doctor Jiang. There is no need to be so formal with this old man.”

“Then…” Liu Jin swallows nervously. “Would it be okay…If not Elder Liu, could I possibly… Can I call you… grandfather?”

Elder Liu looks at him, and Liu Jin is struck by the tears in his eyes.

“Grandson, why did it take you so long to ask?”

“...You know,” Liu Jin realizes, his eyes wide. “How? How could you know?”

His grandfather smiles through the tears.

“How could I not?” his grandfather asks him. “I look at you, and I see your father, but more than that, I look at you, and I see a glimpse of my daughter. How could I not know who you are? You made me talk about your mother so much. Why did you not reveal yourself sooner?”

“I…did not think you’d believe me,” Liu Jin says. His voice trembles. His eyes are suddenly warm. “I didn’t want you to think I was a liar or an opportunist trying to take advantage of you… Enough people do that already, so I didn’t want my own grandfather to think… to think…”

Elder Liu hugs him.

Liu Jin cries.

~~~